Downloaded
by beyondthetower
Summary: After Ellie wakes up in a strange, white room, she is only aware of one thing: she has been downloaded. The world she's released into is odd and scary, but she can't shake the feeling that it all seems familiar, like she had been there before. If the little talking seal following her around claiming to be her "digimon" was right, this world needed her help. (Full Summary inside)


After Ellie wakes up in a strange, white room, she is only aware of one thing: she has been downloaded. The world she's released into is odd and scary, but she can't shake the feeling that it all seems familiar, like she had been there before. If the little talking seal following her around claiming to be her "digimon" was right, this world that felt so much like home needed her help. When she meets up with her estranged childhood friends things start to get pieced back into place—the summer they fell into this world, meeting their digimon, becoming the digidestined. But this time they wouldn't be able to do it on their own. This time, they'd need the help of the other digidestined too.

* * *

Ellie opened her eyes to the blinding, florescent light above her. She felt the cold steal of the metal on her back, and tried to catcher bearings enough to sit herself up. From what she could see, the walls were washed in a generic white paint. There were no doors, no windows—just a small cramped room with one small table.

"Welcome, Ellie Waters. You have been successfully downloaded." The voice seemed to come from nowhere in particular. It floated up through the room from floor to ceiling, bouncing off corners and walls.

When the room stopped spinning she propped herself up onto her elbows, looking around and confirming that there was, in fact, nothing around her. Her pajamas from the night before were gone, replaced with fabric bandages that covered her chest and her bottom half like shorts. Her stomach was still pale white; her toe nails still painted green. _No scars,_ she thought. _At least there's no scars._ Everything, aside from her clothes, was how it was when she had drifted off the night before. So where exactly was she? And how was she supposed to get out?

A wave of panic set in then, once she realized the severity of the situation. There she was, stuck in some sort of prison cell, half naked and confused. She shot up right, scooting forward so her legs hung over the sides. She scrambled off the metal table until her feet touched the floor, and backed herself up as far as she could against the wall.

"Ellie Waters," the woman's voice repeated. "You have been successfully downloaded."

Downloaded? What was that supposed to mean?

There was a static kind of sound, and directly in the center of the metal table a stack of assorted things appeared. There was a pair of tight, blue jeans and a thin, dark red sweater, a black bra, some underwear and socks, a backpack and a pair of brown combat boots. As she stared at the sweater she realized how cold she was, the hair on her arms rose.

"Ellie Waters." It was that damn woman again. After she had listened carefully, she noticed how digital she sounded, computerized. She took awkward pauses between her words and annunciated things too precisely. "Please take the clothes that have been provided for you." Ellie stepped forward, reaching out and grazing her fingers against the thin wool. She pushed down a little harder, until her hand sunk into the fabric, leaving an indent and the perfectly neat stack. Then she looped her finger around one of the backpack straps and lifted it in front of her face, at eye level. It had all appeared like some sort of strange hologram, but it was real.

"Ellie Waters," the voice said again. "Please tale the clothes that have been provided for you."

"Geez," Ellie said. "I'm going, I'm going. Calm down." It was the first time she had heard herself speak in this weird, confined room, and her voice echoed so loudly that she made herself jump. Carefully, she unwrapped the bandages around her chest and hips, shivering at the cold, stale air. She quickly slipped on her underwear and clasped her bra, pulled the jeans up and buttoned them, threaded her arms through the sleeves and pushed her head through.

When she was tying up the laces of her boots the woman came over the invisible PA system again. Ellie jumped, and was sure she would never get used to that shrill feedback. "Ellie Waters, you are now ready to be uploaded into our system."

"Uploaded?" she asked, putting her foot back on the ground. "What are you even talking about?" It was a long shot that the computer lady could hear her, but Ellie was convinced that at this point weirder things had happened, and they just got worse. There was a shaking directly in front of her, coming from the wall, and after a second there was a crack. She lifted her hands up as a blinding light filled the room.

It took her eyes a second to adjust, and when they did she felt her sharp intake of breath. There were trees. Outside of this prison, where she had been "downloaded", there was just regular earth. No bars or barbed wire or a real life firewall—she wanted to laugh at her own mental joke but she was too freaked out. No, there was nothing that seemed to be confining anymore. She wasn't so sure what she was expecting, maybe some sort of videogame-type-climate. But wherever this place was, wherever _she_ was, it just looked like a forest.

Ellie stepped outside slowly, patting the ground with the front of her boot to make sure it was solid. It was. She walked out into the light, and it felt real. The warming sun felt real, the cool breeze felt real, the smell of the damp soil and the sound of the leaves rustling felt real. But there was something about the look of it all—the light, the soil, the trees—that didn't _look_ real.

She heard a door slide shut, and when she turned around the room was gone, nothing but her backpack lying in the dirt. With her hand held in front of her, she walked forward, hoping that for some weird reason she would hit solid brick, that just happened to be invisible or something. But there was nothing, just air.

"What the hell is going on?" she asked herself, hoping that somebody would be around to hear her. She took another look around; there were only trees, a few bushes, no people or animals anywhere in sight. She sighed, gripped the backpack strap and threw it over her shoulder. She looked to her left, to her right, picked the direction that called to her the most, and started walking.

The sun was starting to set, starting to sink down behind the weirdly shaped trees and dip down past the strange looking mountains that had come into view a few hours before.

Hours. Ellie had been walking for hours.

She stopped, defeated, and plopped down onto a rock sitting at the roots of a tree. Her head fell into her hands, sliding down from her forehead to her chin and back again, and she let out a long, sharp breath. There was a feeling in her stomach, she noticed, but she couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. Somewhere in there was a giant mix of things: fear, hunger, anxiety, But the weirdest thing, is that at the core of I tall, she felt this odd sense that she had been there before—that she was home.

Just as quickly as the thought had popped into her head it vanished, and her head jolted up when she heard a rustle in the bushes. It was just dark enough that the shadows seemed eerie, and the wind that brushed through the leaves was no longer calming but creepy. Instinctively, she shot up, her eyes glued to the blueberry-looking bush directly ahead of her.

"Man, what is with all of these twigs?" The voice cut through the silence, but despite her complete unawareness of who or what it was, she noticed her heartbeat was oddly calm. "I mean is it so much to ask for a little water? Maybe a river? A nice stream?"

Out from the bushes waddled a little sea-lion looking creature. It was mostly white, covered with a few swirls of purple fur, and a bright bushy head of orange hair—or I guess you'd call it hair at least. It had claws at the end of its flippers, and Ellie wondered what on earth a freaky looking seal was doing in the woods.

It looked up at her, and she noticed then that she had been so still and silent that she, in a way, had snuck up on it. It jumped back, yelling loudly. Ellie screamed too, struck by the fact that a sea lion was making human noises. The two of them took a second to calm down, and just stared. His green eyes stared her down with surprise and worry, until finally he smiled, and attacked.

"Ellie! Ellie! I can't believe it's you I can't believe I actually found you! I thought they were crazy saying that you would be back but you are! You are!"

She could barely hear the thing through her screams. As she ran around trying to pry it off of her, she realized that it wasn't clawing out her neck. It was hugging her. She stopped, and it was quiet, until it spoke again.

"I knew you would come back for me." This time it spoke in a softer voice, one filled with comfort and relief, and a little bit of sadness rang through it.

"Y-you talk," Ellie stuttered.

The thing pulled away, gripping her shoulders and holding on by his tail flippers, or feet, or whatever they were. "What are you talking about? Of course I talk." He jumped back down onto the ground and looked up at her. "And if I recall you _liked_ that about me. It's part of my charm, you said. That's what you told me."

"You're a seal. And you talk," she repeated, hoping that if she tried to piece it together out loud her brain would follow suit. It didn't. "You're a talking seal, oh my god that's it I've gone crazy. I've gone batshit insane and this whole place is some weird dream. Downloaded? I mean what was I thinking? No wonder none of this makes any sense I'm imagining this whole thing. Or dreaming. That's it! I'm still asleep. This is a dream. Ow!" Ellie ribbed at the red spot on her leg where the thing was standing with his claws close to her skin.

"Who are you calling a talking seal?" it asked.

"Did you just pinch me?" she yelled.

"Ellie, it's like you don't even recognize me." The little sad part of his voice seemed more prominent now.

She was silent, and just stared down at him with a questioned look.

"It's me, Elle. It's Gomamon."

"You're _who_ now?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Gomamon, or whatever it was calling itself, looked like it got slapped in the face. "Gomamon! Your digimon! You're telling me I spent all this time waiting for you to come back and you just forget about me?! What kind of monster are you?! What kind of _partner_ are you?! What kind of _friend_ are you?!" It kept going on in that same, loud voice for a while until Ellie finally cut it off.

"I'm sorry. _Friend_? _Partner?_ What are you even talking about?" she paused and looked away, back up at the sky, which was getting darker by the minute. "What am _I_ talking about?" she asked herself. "I'm talking to a seal. Get a grip, Elle, get a grip." She felt a painful knowing at her ankle and cried out. That thing was chewing on her now? What was its deal?

"Who are you calling a seal? I'm a digimon I'm not animal. We're a refined bunch." She shook it off.

"Oh refined?" She squatted down so she was more at eye level and tilted her head. "Says the weird talking fur ball that's chewing on my foot." Although every part of her common sense was screaming for her not to, she reached out and grabbed under its arms. The thing didn't struggle; it just hung there and looked at her, aggravated. "I should be way more freaked out," she told it. "Why am I not more freaked out?"

"Because, Ellie, you _know_ me. Duh." This thing had way too much attitude.

"Alright, alright, calm down." Ellie had to admit, something about it did seem familiar. "So what did you call yourself again?"

"Gomamon," it told her.

"Right. Gomamon then. You're some sort of, colorful, aquatic, digipet?"

Gomamon scoffed at her and started to squirm. "I am not pet, don't you dare. It's digimon. _Digimon._"

She dropped it back onto the ground and fell back onto her butt. "Okay geez! I'm sorry!" Her tailbone stung, and she rubbed it until the pain dulled. "So you're a digimon. Alright, I'll go with it." Her chin fell into her hands, and she stared at Gomamon. His eyes were big and green, and it looked at her like it knew everything about her. It was creepy.

"Digimon," Ellie repeated, her eyes still focused on the thing. She shook her head and closed her eyes, hoping that maybe it would shake her awake, but when she opened her eyes it was still staring up at her. She sighed in defeat, and her head dropped. Despite her fears, she felt that sudden pang of comfort again, and it only made her more nervous.


End file.
